Senator 41

Scott Brown's victory in the race to fill the Senate seat previously occupied by the brothers Kennedy (first Jack, then Ted) from 1953 to 2009 (but for a brief interlude from 1961 to 1962) is the political equivalent of pigs flying.  Republicans make up less than 12% of all registered voters in Massachusetts.  In the 2008 Presidential election, Barack Obama outpolled John McCain by more than 26% in Massachusetts.  Yet Scott Brown defeated his Democratic challenger, Martha Coakley, by a margin of 52% to 47%.

Brown's victory gives the Republican Party 41 seats in the Senate.  So long as those 41 Senators stick together, they can use the Senate's rules to block cloture on any debate (which requires 60 votes), thus preventing legislation from being placed before the Senate for a vote.  The seating of Senator-elect Brown in the Senate will place portions of  President Obama's agenda in jeopardy since all 40 current Republican Senators voted against Obamacare and will likely vote against any plan to pump more "stimulus" dollars into the economy.  Brown ran on a platform that emphasized the need to continue the war on terror, to provide tax relief and to control Federal spending. On Obamacare, Brown promised to vote against cloture in the Senate. The voters of Massachusetts understood that a victory by Brown would be a major roadblock to the agenda of the President and the Democrats in Congress, and yet they voted for Brown anyway.

My liberal friends have been harping all day that Brown's victory does not reflect overall discontent with the Democratic Party's agenda for America.  They argue that Coakley was a weak candidate who ran a poor campaign.  They argue that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee did not come through with any support.  They argue that the Coakley defeat represents disillusionment by the Democratic base because President Obama and the Democrats who run Congress have not been "progressive" (read that as ultra-liberal) enough.  But the polling numbers tell a different story:

• 78% of Brown voters strongly oppose the health care legislation before Congress
• 61% of Brown voters say deficit reduction is more important than health care reform
• 88% of Brown voters say it’s better to pass nothing at all than to pass the health care legislation pending in Congress
• 76% of Brown voters said that they were voting "for Brown" and not "against Coakley" 

In other words, the push by President Obama and the Democrats who control Congress for bloated and ineffective health care "reform" defined the Massachusetts election, and the person who vowed to stand in the way of the Democrat's plan won the race in convincing fashion.  In the face of the evidence from the Massachusetts race, coming as it does on top of the recent GOP victories for the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey, how can President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid be so tin-eared at to believe that they should now double-down their efforts to pass Obamacare at all costs?

On the other side of the aisle, the Senate GOP should take advantage of this situation to propose health care reform that makes sense.  I agree with my liberal friends that health care needs attention, but why does that have to translate into swallowing either the Democratic House or Senate bills that are now being considered?  Why can't we address the glaring problems that everyone agrees on rather than making secret backroom deals and passing out boxes of goodies to constituencies like Big Labor just so it can be said that something has been done?  To this end, I would propose that the Republicans in the Senate, with the enlisted help of some Democrats such as Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu, propose legislation that will address the following narrow issues:

• Place significant restrictions on pre-existing condition exclusions
• Restructure Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates
• Provide reimburseable tax credits to low and lower-middle income individuals and families to be used to purchase health insurance
• Place limits on exemplary damages in medical malpractice tort cases
• Permit insurance companies to sell health insurance across state lines

Republicans could use this opportunity to take the lead on health care.  A limited debate focused on these issues would not have to detract from the serious work that needs to be done to foster job creation in the current economy and to protect American citizens from the curse of Islamic terrorism.

Opposition to Obamacare = Support for Slavery?

Yesterday on the floor of the United States Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said that Republican opposition to Obamacare equates with opposition to the abolition of slavery during the 19th century.  I kid you not.  An excerpt from Reid's speech, as reported in The Boston Globe: 

"Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all Republicans have come up with is this slow down, stop everything, let's start over," said Reid. "You think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right. When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said, 'Slow down, it's too early. Let's wait. Things aren't bad enough.' When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted, 'Slow down, there will be a better day to do that. The day isn't quite right," Reid said on the Senate floor.

"When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone, regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today," he continued. "History is repeating itself before our eyes. There are now those who don't think it is the right time to reform health care. If not now, when, madam president? But the reality for many that feel that way, it will never, never be a good time to reform health care."

Sen. Reid failed to mention in his remarks that he has a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and that the Republican minority could not stop the Democratic majority from passing Obamacare if they presented a united front.  But they do not.  The reason Sen. Reid is attacking Republicans is because he cannot attack the members of his own party who refuse to go along with the creation of this massive government takeover of health care. 

Sen. Reid's comments are also interesting because, as so often has been the case, his own Democratic Party was the force behind the opposition to the historical initiatives to which he referred.  The Republican Party was formed in the 19th century primarily as an anti-slavery party in opposition to the pro-slavery Democratic Party.  The Republican Party was the first of the major parties to include a plank in its national platform in favor of universal women's suffrage, which it did all the way back in 1872.  And of course, our own Democratic Sen. Robert C. Byrd led the filibuster in the Senate that sought to stop passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  In fact, Republicans, as a percentage of total membership in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, supported passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in far greater numbers than Democrats.  In the House, Republicans suppported passage by 80% to 20%, compared to only 63% to 37% among Democrats.  In the Senate, Republicans supported passage by 82% to 18%, compared to 69% to 31% by the Democrats.

The next time Sen. Reid resorts to history for support of his agenda, he might want to come up with some better examples.

A Mountain of Debt, and Other Thoughts for a Monday

When the The New York Times begins to care enough to write about it, the Obama debt situation must really be getting out of control.    Of course, conservative commentators, including me, have been sounding the alarm bells for a long time (IVM discussed the President's money troubles from its founding back in September).  The Times actually sounds like it is concerned today when it notes that an increase in interest rates above the current unheard-of levels will cause Federal debt service payments to skyrocket:

Even a small increase in interest rates has a big impact. An increase of one percentage point in the Treasury’s average cost of borrowing would cost American taxpayers an extra $80 billion this year — about equal to the combined budgets of the Department of Energy and the Department of Education.

But that could seem like a relatively modest pinch. Alan Levenson, chief economist at T. Rowe Price, estimated that the Treasury’s tab for debt service this year would have been $221 billion higher if it had faced the same interest rates as it did last year.

The national debt now tops $12 Trillion.  Increased debt service payments will continue to eat away at available Federal dollars unless the size of the United States' economy grows dramatically.

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Yet another recent event highlights an issue of enormous concern to me:  when will the Obama Administration stand up to the Iranians?  I have written a number of times about the President's unilateral decision to withdraw SDI from Poland and the Czech Republic, a decision that has direct implications to the Iranian situation.  And the President has utterly failed to address Iran's nuclear ambitions, a fact that creates security concerns for Israel, Eastern Europe, Iraq and India.  But why would a "progressive" American President ever want to abandon the moral high ground with respect to human rights and fostering democratic governmental institutions?  Yet the President has done exactly that, in a statement issued, of all times, on the 30th anniversary of the Iranian takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran:

I have made it clear that the United States of America wants to move beyond this past, and seeks a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran based upon mutual interests and mutual respect.  We do not interfere in Iran’s internal affairs.

Beyond the basic fact that this statement was issued on a date commemorated by Iranian's mad mullahs as a great victory by Iran over "The Great Satan", a couple of things jump out at me.  First, the President says in the statement that he seeks a relationship with "the Islamic Republic of Iran."  The "Islamic Republic" is the same government that is now run by the madman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who bullied his way to re-election by intimidation and murder.  Why could not the President simply have said that he seeks a relationship with the people--the ordinary citizens--of Iran?  And second, while the President was reaching out to a government run by institutional terrorists, the streets of Tehran were filled with thousands of protesters who risked their very lives to challenge the government of the "Islamic Republic."  Yet the President offered not one single word of encouragement to those brave souls.  Instead, he made it clear that Ahmadinejad should feel free to continue to beat, torture, imprison and kill his domestic challengers because the United States will "not interfere in Iran’s internal affairs."  How can the United States assert any sort of moral superiority when our leader refuses to utter a word of support for those who only want to enjoy the same rights of free speech, free assembly and free association that we enjoy here?

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Ah, the liberal dream that is socialized medicine appears to be dying on the vine of many branches that is the Democratic Party.  To please "progressives" in the Party, any plan must provide coverage for abortion and must include a government-run option.  To the so-called "Blue Dogs" of the Party, the public option is a non-starter, and the final version must show some fiscal restraint.  And while all of the Democrats want to raise our taxes--Democrats LOVE to raise taxes--the Democrats in the House cannot agree with the Democrats in the Senate over which taxes to raise.  So while Harry Reid was able to muster enough votes to move the bill to floor debate in the Senate, he is a looooooong way from herding the cats of his party into the same pen.

My biggest issue:  the pathological lying by Democrats in both houses of Congress over the actual cost of their health care "reform" proposals.  They continue to trumpet that health care reform will actually reduce the deficit over the next ten years.  And how could a Trillion Dollars in new spending possibly reduce the deficit?  Because the Democrats play a parlor trick with the accounting by counting ten years of revenue against only six years of expenses, thus hiding the true cost of their "reform."

And while the Democrats are wasting all of this time and effort on a "reform" proposal that will either (1) fail; or (2) doom the American people to a massive debt burden for as far as the eyes can see, unemployment is reaching higher and higher and higher.  It truly is hard to believe that a gifted politician like Barack Obama can be so tone-deaf when it comes to the actual concerns of the American people.  As his poll numbers continue to slip, he and the Democratic Party-controlled Congress are doing nothing--NOTHING--about the economy.

Election Day +1

Today the airwaves and the Web are filled with opinions about "what it all means."  In general, the opinion you get is based upon where you go to seek it out.  Democrats and lefties?  The elections were "local issues" and did not have anything to do with the Obama agenda or his performance in office to date.  The GOP'ers and conservatives?  The results signal that the Obama agenda is under seige and everything from Cap'n Trade to Obamacare will be laid waste.  I suppose my opinion is as worthy as any of those, so a few thoughts from out of the hills:

• Virginia:  Other than Fairfax County and environs and certain parts of metro Richmond and the Tidewater area, Virginia is now what it has always been:  deeply conservative.  Without Obama at the top of the ticket to excite all of the crazy liberals (or "progressives", as they like to call themselves) and get them out to the polls, the ordinary Virginians who are concerned about high taxes and big government came out in force to vote for their own.  The GOP won from the top to the bottom of the ticket.  The Republican candidates won all three of the statewide offices of Governor, Lt. Governor and Attorney General, and picked up five seats in the House of Delegates, giving them a 60% to 40% majority.  It was a GOP beatdown of the Democrats.
• New Jersey:  I don't know anything about local New Jersey politics, but I do know that they change governors like they change clothes.  In the past ten years, and including the new governor, Chris Christie, who will take office in January, six different people have held the title of governor in New Jersey.  An additional three people have served as "acting governor."  Five of the nine have been Republicans, and four have been Democrats (I am counting Codey twice; a Democrat, he served as both governor and acting governor).  Jon Corzine, the Democrat who was defeated yesterday by Christie, was formerly the head of Goldman Sachs, which may have made him rich but which doesn't look so great to the average blue collar Democrat.  During his short tenure in office, he utterly failed to do anything about New Jersey's outrageous taxes and bloated government.  He tried to claim the Obama magic by bringing the President on board for campaign appearances, but it didn't work.  At least part of the defeat has to be attributed to Corzine's failures, and part has to be attributed to the national economy, where the public's patience with the President is stretching thin.  Neither the people of New Jersey, nor the American public as a whole, have much patience with a weak economy.
• New York 23:  The lone bright spot for the Democrats, who managed to elect Bill Owens in a district that is as red as red can be.  I do not think that Owen's victory represents any sort of Democratic surge in upstate New York.  The Republican dropped out of the race, and the remaining candidate, Doug Hoffman, who ran under the third party Conservative label, was polling in single digits just three weeks prior to election day before the Republican dropped out.  Dede Scozzafava, the Republican candidate who had been selected by county executive committee chairmen rather than as the winner of a primary, is more liberal than two-thirds of the current Democrats in the House of Representatives (the New York Times, the Huffington Post and other liberal outlets insisted on calling her a "moderate Republican"; apparently, they think that being pro-abortion, pro-Obamacare and pro-stimulus spending constitutes moderation).  The real reason for the overwhelming joy amongst the liberal set is that Hoffman was endorsed by Sarah Palin, who ranks second only to Dick Cheney as favorite boogeyman of the liberals.  Apparently, they believe that Hoffman's loss represents a rebuke of Palin, which could not be less true.  Palin stepped up to the plate and said what needed to be said:  that Scozzafava does not represent Republican values and interests and should not be supported.  Good for her.  If Hoffman had had enough time and money to mount a real campaign, Owens would not have had a chance.

This election comes as the nation deals with an unemployment rate approaching 10%, tight credit and a Federal budget deficit topping $1 Trillion.  Yet with all of the problems with our economy, the Democrats in Congress have wasted the past 3 months debating which form of a government takeover of the health care industry they should enact.  The American people know that now is not the time (if such a time would ever exist) to increase the size of the Federal government by $1.3 Trillion per year for a total approaching 25% of GDP.  Obamacare has been in trouble for a while now, and with 2010 being an election year, the Democrat's dream of having the government make all of our health care choices for us may well disappear until 2011, at the earliest.  Sometimes, doing nothing at all is a very good thing.

I have enjoyed a couple of belly laughs today at the claims by the "progressives" that yesterday's elections actually showcase a need for Democrats to be, hold on now, more liberal!  The examples of this school of thought may be found all over the Web today, but I particularly enjoyed this one, which claims that Deeds would have won in Virginia if only (if only!) he had wholeheartedly supported Cap'n Trade, Obamacare, the Employee Lack of Free Choice Act and unlimited benefits for illegal immigrants.  Heh, heh.  I hope the Democrats take the advice to heart, because if they do, it will ensure a Republican majority for years to come.